Saj and Co: I bet you’ve never had coffee made this way before

Saj and Co: I bet you’ve never had coffee made this way before

I’ll admit it – I’d never heard of these guys before Nic from Phil and Sebastian reached out to me to see if I wanted to go and try their coffee.

They’re a Lebanese restaurant, they sell fancy ass Geisha and someone else was picking up the tab?

OF COURSE I FRIGGING WANTED TO GO.

Allow me to present to you Saj and Co: fantastic food and coffee served in a way I bet you’ve never tried before.

Coffee

“Malakccino? Sajspresso? Sort of Turkish style coffee?” – that was a legit conversation we had with the owner, trying to come up with what this kind of coffee is called. In the end it was decided that this would be called:

Coffee at Maktaba

First off the coffee prep. There’s no grinder. Instead, the owner, Malek, has a beast of a spice mill:

It’d be interesting to get a KRUVE involved here, to see how it compares with a normal grinder.

Next up, the grinds are put into a a small, hand made copper pot:

Then heated over a small butane burner:

Can you guess what coffee they use?

The end result is passed through a hand strainer and served in a small cup, with the coffee being about the size of an espresso shot. It’s somewhat reminiscent of a Turkish coffee, but it’s not nearly as strong, has no sugar and no spices are added.

Essentially it’s just a small filter coffee shot, but brewed in a really unique way. Because there are no fine mesh filters involved you’ll want to drink it quickly, because there’s a certain level of silt in it that will keep extracting after it’s been poured, however, I didn’t find this affected the taste much.

Food

I’m not going to pretend I know anything about Lebanese food, but what I can tell you is that this was the best lineup of vegetarian food I think I’ve ever had. I’ll also not pretend to be able to tell you exactly what I ate, because there was so much, but I think the photos below speak for themselves!

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The Vancouver Coffee Snob is the highest rated coffee reviewer there has ever been on this site. Which makes sense really, as he's the only one posting on here.
His reviews should, at best, not be trusted and there's no substance to the rumor that he has a jar of instant coffee in his kitchen.
Ultimately his heart is in the right place. Physically that is... he's actually a bit of imbecile in person.